Rockets

Legal, I think the council has dug in for so long now and made such a mess of the implementation that wholesale changes will need to be made to restore local confidence in their ability to do what they are elected to do. The fact councillors are suggesting there might be changes as "they are not perfect" (one questions why it took them so long to work this out when everyone else could work out what was going to happen before they went in) suggests they might tweak and then say...give it another 12 months..... To have any impact on the displacement tsunami they have to reopen east west access so Court Lane/DV has to reopen and you then will need to remove the DV timed closures. They can probably keep Melbourne Grove. It will be interesting if they pursue the rumoured creation of a one-way Court Lane/DV junction.

Tilt - I agree, wilful ignorance or a complete dereliction of duty. Unfortunately, this is what happens when there is no opposition to a dominant party - they start doing what they please, when they want, how they want - regardless of what anyone thinks - and then instead of course-correcting they dig in their defences and battle it out to the last. By which time they have done the over-riding strategic objective huge harm - then they'll start looking for someone else to blame for the debacle.

Rahx3 - it all comes back to what % of change needs to happen for it to have a material positive effect for everyone and that probably needs to be getting way over 50% of car reduction (and remember this is the council's stated objective - although they have backtracked quite a bit from that) and there isn't an LTN programme anywhere that has delivered anything beyond low single digit modal shift. Why? Because the basic infrastructure needed to support wider modal shift is severely lacking - 50% of the residents in Dulwich do not have access to bike storage facilities. So whilst Southwark bang on and on about the % of Southwark residents who don't have access to a car they miss the point entirely and seem to think that is the justification for these measures (I hasten to add a large % of Southwark's population lives close to a tube station in the north of the borough, which they always seem inclined to overlook).

alice Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The puzzle always has been: Why was the centre of > South Southwark deemed to be > Calton/village/junction? > > I asked this at one of the zoom meetings and was > asked whether i wanted the same measures on my > road. Not an answer to the question. It's because the folks of Calton/Court Lane/DV are considered differently than others - do you know, for example, that the council cleans their green, brown and blue bins every couple of weeks.....?

Ex- surely the objective should be to reduce pollution for everyone - not just some? I know planners are currently obsessed with "nudge interventions" (it seems to be THE buzz word) but I am not sure how anyone can agree with such a strategic policy that is so imbalanced and one that creates bliss for one and hell for another. What people really mean by nudge intervention is that you throw something in that makes life so miserable for those impacted by the results that they just say please give us what they have - the fact this is being pushed by, so called, socialist administrations is quite shocking. Also, defaulting to the "we just need more of them" is another tactic employed by those who favour them and is horrendously flawed as you can't just keep pushing the collateral damage to another street. It is the weak argument of those who have no idea how to try and tackle the problem holistically - it's lazy and gets rolled out by every councillor. I am sorry but your fly-tipping example just doesn't work. Fly tipping happens on my street and I would much prefer to see something that removes fly-tipping at source rather than just saying - get it dumped in the next street along please. This is not about sharing pollution it's about sharing the responsibility for reducing it and not, in the process. reducing it for some yet doubling it for others. This seems to be the part of the issue that pro-LTNs fail to grasp and it's not actually that difficult to understand.

Heatblock - Labour have completely immersed themselves in the pro-LTN propaganda and are drinking the Kool-Aid by the gallon. The use of the Fact Check carries as much weight as the Tories doing it on their twitter feed during the election (and that's before it takes you to Peter Walker's articles ;-)) - I would love to know to which LTNs they are referring to that have reduced traffic on both residential and boundary roads as there isn't one in existence - I suspect they are regurgitating the Waltham Forest "success" - which, as we know, was anything but successful for anyone who didn't live within the closed area - the 28% increase in traffic 3.1 miles from the outer edge of the Waltham Forest LTN speaks volumes! Re: school drops Court Lane is also a school car park at drop-off and pick-up time but at least they are walking the last 100 yards!!! ;-)

Heartblock - can you share the documents that have been shared with you from the meeting? What meeting was it? Was it a meeting for Labour members within the LTN area? Are political parties allowed to try to influence the outcome - fine if they are telling people to go and look at the review but not so fine if they are telling people how they should respond - at what point does that become interference?

Indeed, given the coop of aforementioned Mr.Chicken is "close to the Calton Avenue junction" - as they stated on one of their first posts here - I think we can all determine what Mr.Chicken's objective is....their tongue-in-cheek postings were entertaining to begin with but now appear to be nothing more than a exercise in disruption. Perhaps they might shed their cloak of obtuseness, join the debate properly and tell us what they really think.....;-)

The challenge that the council has, and why the LTNs are not working, is because whilst car ownership is some of the highest in our part of Southwark the flip side is that the number of local journeys done on foot or by bike is also some of the highest in the borough. So what gives? It suggests that locals are not using their cars for unnecessary journeys yet are being unfairly punished by (many of them) having to live with the displacement caused by these closures. To be fair, if 68% of local journeys were being done or foot or bike in 2018 you can bet that, thanks to Covid, is probably up near the 80% level and you won't get much higher than that no matter what you do. In fact, maybe these measures will actually have an even more negative impact. I have worried for a long time that Lordship Lane is suffering because of the increases in traffic. Now it never was the quietest of roads but the pollution is becoming horrendous with the traffic queuing along its length with the displaced traffic. I suspect a lot of those 68% were walking journeys to and from the Lane and at what point do people no longer go to shop or eat there because of the pollution?

Also as Otto2 was posting earlier some people with cargo bikes currently stored in their houses would be very keen to use cycle hangers but the challenge is, given the huge waiting list for cycle hangar spaces, can the council devote (what looks like) three of 4 normal cycle storage spots in a hangar to a single cargo bike - there isn't the infrastructure in place to aptly support demand for normal bikes yet alone cargo bikes. Modal shift will never amount to anything more than low single digit percentages if councils don't wake up to the fact that stick alone won't make it happen - there has to be some carrot. Every time I see a pro-LTN twitter groups posting pictures and videos from the Townley Road junction of children on bikes I do chuckle and think to myself that all it is validating is that modal shift only happens for those who attend some of the most expensive private schools in the country (where finding places to store bikes at school is not an issue) and are able to cycle from some of the largest houses in London (which also have no problem storing bikes).

It is also very telling that in the Netherlands, despite their love of the bike, they own more cars per capita than we do in the UK.

The council has monumentally failed when it comes to the support infrastructure to enable modal shift - is it any surprise only 3% of the 68% of journeys locally were done on bikes back in 2018? No, because look at Lordship Lane - very few places to secure a bike and the council could, and should, have been doing more to provide the infrastructure to support it. It's embarrassing. The council got so side-tracked by obsessing over trying to close Dulwich Village to traffic that they took their eye off the ball. Look at how much money they have spent in the village to try to close it to traffic yet people across the wider Dulwich area have been crying out for infrastructure to be put in place so they can store bikes. Over the last 18 months of the pandemic the council's efforts to install bike storage infrastructure has been beyond pathetic.

LTN BooHoo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Think outside the box and encourage the council to > do more not less. Given the way they have mishandled the existing LTN closures I am not sure they should be encouraged or entrusted to do more. In fact I am not sure many would trust them to do anything anymore. Don't forget the ludicrous plans for Peckham Rye and other areas that they had to scrap at the beginning of this debacle. It was interesting when our councillors held their ward meeting on the issues, someone said that they were unhappy about having to live with the displacement and one of our councillors said: "Let's discuss whether we can install measures on your road". It seems the preferred council solution to the chaos these measures cause is to pass it onto someone else. Maybe this can be the council's new slogan....Southwark...making someone else deal with the problem?

An update from One Dulwich. One Dulwich Campaign Update | 24 May Dear all, The Dulwich Review Still no rush to fill in the Dulwich Review, which closes online on 11 July. None of the promised supporting data has so far materialised, and some of it won?t be available for weeks. There are two more online meetings organised by the Council (yesterday?s meeting was just about the basic aims of the Dulwich LTNs) on Wednesday 26 May at 7pm, and Saturday 19 June at 2pm. Tickets are free, but you need to book via the link above. We have been looking carefully at the survey, and are raising a number of serious problems with Southwark Council. These include: No specific options put forward for Dulwich Village junction (for example, ANPR cameras) if you want a different solution. This is not what the Council promised. The high risk of duplicate entries and fraud, as surveys can be completed using just a name, email address and postcode (but no house number). The ?unique identifier? appears to have no purpose ?? we have heard of multiple printed copies with different ?unique identifiers? sent to single-person households. Data protection and whether questions are age-appropriate: there is no minimum age for filling in the survey and under 16s are encouraged to respond. How will Southwark know whether answers are from a 15-year-old or a two-year-old? Traffic displacement: there are no specific questions about the traffic displacement that is badly affecting residents and schoolchildren on roads like Croxted Road, East Dulwich Grove, Lordship Lane, Dulwich Common and Underhill Road We will keep you closely in touch with next steps. Our fighting fund The fighting fund we have set up with the Dulwich Alliance has now reached ?13,184. Please continue to spread the word via social media. Donations are being used to print and distribute leaflets and posters, and to progress our legal advice. Leaflets and posters Please go to www.dulwichalliance.org and click on the LEAFLETS or POSTERS tab if you?d like further copies. Our new leaflet, highlighting the impact of 24/7 closures and excessive timed restrictions on local businesses, is being delivered to 18,000 homes in the Dulwich LTNs area.

Does anyone know why in 99% of other places the LTN barriers have been made permeable for emergency services yet in Dulwich Village they persist with immovable barriers - what is the rationale behind that - they made the Melbourne Grove barriers permeable? Is it because the grand plans for the "Square" would not be possible if the emergency services need to have access?

The council is organising some meetings to discuss the closures - the first is this Sunday. Council meetings on the closures: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dulwich-streetspace-review-community-meetings-tickets-153435899907 Community Meetings to discuss the Highways schemes in Dulwich About this event We want to hear from as many people as possible in the local community - what are your views on the current Highways measures in Dulwich Village, East Dulwich and Champion Hill, and what would you like to see in the future? We have scheduled 3 online meetings during the consultation period:- 1. Sunday 23rd May - the council will discuss the highways schemes, our aims and objectives. 2. Wednesday 26th May - we want to hear the views of the public and different stakeholder groups. 3. Saturday 19th June - we will break into smaller groups and look at the issues and challenges in greater detail - so everyone should get a chance to speak. Please register your interest here and provide your email address - the link to the meeting will be sent out on the day and will come from [email protected] (please check your Junk folder)

This thread seems to be doing more research into the root cause of the problems than the council has ever done! ;-) 68% of local journeys were being done on foot or bike in 2018 and I suggest post-pandemic that that figure is even higher - so clearly the issue does not lie with us locals yet it is us locals who are having to live with the displacement being caused by the sledge-hammer to crack a nut closures installed by the council. If only they had done some proper research to determine what the traffic issues across the area were being caused by and look at measures that could adequately address the problems but, unfortunately, they were allowing themselves to be led by a small group of anti-car protagonists whose sole aim was to close roads to car usage and create car-free/massively reduced zones for the benefit only of those within them. The council's misguided, ill-conceived and executed strategy is backfiring massively.

Northern I think the issue is that a lot of people don't support these measures as they create even more unacceptable queuing traffic. That's the crux of the issue. There is broad support for measures that would reduce queuing traffic everywhere for everyone - these get nowhere near that unfortunately.

PollyGlot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Some local residents had the opportunity to > discuss LTN matters with a Councillor today. This > was none other than Margy Newens, who is Deputy > Community Champion for the South Area. > > One of the first questions presented to her was > "What is the PRIME purpose of the LTN measures?". > > Her emphatic and unequivocal response was "TO > REDUCE TRAFFIC". No mention of pollution!! > > She apparently failed to understand that pollution > would be reduced if electric cars were exempted > from the LTN penalties ( as is the case with taxis > and buses) and that if they were exempt, then that > would accelerate the adoption of electric cars and > bring about rapid reduction in pollution. > > She was unaware that the statistics provided by > Southwark on their website are 20 months out of > date! > > What hope do we have when our community has > representatives like this? We have to frame her response in terms of what the underlying objective for Margy Newens was: To reduce traffic......for her constituents..... It's been clear from day one that that was the only objective and that this was to be achieved by any means necessary - even if that meant that other councillors' constituents had to absorb the displacement. I am glad she has put that out there as if the council cannot prove that this has happened area wide to a significant degree then the scheme will have been a complete failure. One wonders then whether any councillors will admit they were wrong and take actually responsibility for their mistakes - I very much doubt it. The amount of money the council has wasted on this is absurd.

OMG - has anyone started to fill out the review documents - talk about lose the will to live!? Firstly it re-stats the affirmation that these measures were brought about as part of the Covid response to aid social distancing and then asks a load of leading questions (all of which are linked to the success of such measures) - not one question addresses whether there have been any negative impacts associated with the closures. Astonishing. Of course you can leave comments but they don't measure comments. I started filling it out, trying to be as balanced as possible and then found myself getting more and more annoyed by the blinkered questions as I could see how the council were going to try and manipulate the results. It appears the only way to voice any concern may be to strongly disagree with all the assumptions made in the review.

The article doesn't explain what the kerbs are and does say that the researchers think the number could be massively higher. Is it just me or do a lot of the Guardian's articles seem to be a little light on detail.....an attention grabbing headline but that's about it, as you read down the article so the headline becomes weaker and weaker. Of course, the point the Guardian or the cycle group researchers who did the research miss is that all those modal filters weren't dropped in at once or caused the type of displacement chaos we are seeing in many areas that have these new ones (like Dulwich). But these articles do little to try to establish what is actually happening and are written from a position of justifying why they shouldn't come out - and that is an important distinction and why they are just part of the pro-LTN propaganda machine. I am still chuckling at the childish and pointed Laurence Fox reference.....;-)

Come on Ex- you work in the industry and you know that when you read that Guardian article that it is both really clutching at straws and scraping the barrel at the same time isn't it.....25,000 thousand modal filters that include bollards, kerbs, planters and gates......since the 1960s....... Peter Walker's article is clearly manipulated to make the reader think that there are 25,000 LTN like filters in place across the country but the inclusion of kerbs would, no doubt, include any kerbs installed to facilitate a bike lane, or a drop kerb to allow buggies to be pushed across the road - which of course, don't have the same displacement tsunami effect of closing the DV/Court Lane junction...... I think we can safely file that one to the "Peter Walker Propaganda" file....at some point I am hoping even the Guardian editor must have turn to Peter and say...."Peter...really!!!???" ;-) I also love how he drops the name of Laurence Fox in there....just to ram home the anti-LTN supporter trope....

legalalien Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Envelope update - there is nothing on the outside > of the envelope to indicate it's from Southwark or > anyone else, and just says to "The Resident" (with > specific address). Postage paid, 1st class. As > mentioned I thought it was one of those estate > agent "do you want to sell your house" things. My they really seem to be going out of their way to bury this review and try to ensure people miss it. Ironic isn't it that they send out all other comms from the council with their logo plastered all over it.....perhaps this was another one of those council LTN oversights.... It will be very interesting to see how widely this leaflet is distributed....they mess up the first one royally....ahem, perhaps that has always been the plan!

flippit Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > @rockets > > I'm fascinated your heads-up on the tracking > stickers. But to work surely they would need to > transmit some sort of signal by a device that > required a power source and would that not be > easily seen. If they work them I want one for my > Ribble then if someone takes it, I want to find > it. I got the impression from our friends that these were something the thieves targeting bikes had created rather than them being available (I will ask them though - I believe it had been stuck on the bottom of the frame so was out of sight). You can get GPS tracking devices for bikes but they are deliberately large so they could not be hidden.

I think the unique ref numbers were part of the initial plan when the council were hoping to be able to focus the review on those living within the LTN area only. A lot of people saw through that plan, and remember it was Cllr Williams who referenced the unique ref numbers in emails. It is clear there is still an element of this approach indicated by the blue shading area which I can only presume is the official "review area" and I suspect the residents there will be given a heavier weighting, this eliminating the voices of those living on the displacement routes. The council engagement plan references those on the boundary roads (but nothing beyond) so I suspect they will not be taking the views of those living east of Lordship Lane as strongly as those within the LTN area. This is why they have not distributed/failed to distribute the leaflets beyond the blue shading area. It's clear what they are doing here, the engagement plan is very open ended and we probably won't find out until they present the results of the review bit it does look as if it is now a case of collect as much data as possible to find a way to positively present the results. Legal - does it indicate anywhere on the envelope that it is from the council?